Background...

Peter and Mary Jane had to decide whether or not it was acceptable to
compromise her morals to further her career by appearing nude in an Arnold
Schwartzenheimer movie. This occurred in Spider-Man #18. She soon decided
that it wasn't worth it.

Yesterday: Peter arrives at the Daily Bugle and delivers some pre-publicity
photos from Arnold Schwartzenheimer's new film. Robbie is grateful for the
scoop and gives him a bonus.

At this point, Jonah storms in with a broken half of Captain Britain's
original power staff. He's in a particularly foul mood having his mail room
"lowered" by accepting correspondence between vigilantes. Peter gets a look at
the attached note, requesting Spider-Man's assistance – in London. Peter
reluctantly uses his bonus money to pay for the next flight to England.

Today: Taking a cue from the "Sherlock" comment in the note, Spider-Man
makes his way – in the rain – to Baker Street, the home of the fictional
detective. As he perches on a stone gargoyle overlooking the road, it is
brought to life and attacks him. During their battle, he shatters the advanced
robot and is exposed to a powerful knockout gas. He is then dropped into a
smokestack which hides a series of transparent plastic tubes that direct his
fall toward the ground, where Paris and the Juggernaut await him.
Understandably confused, he is attacked by the Juggernaut who has mysteriously
gained the ability to fly.

After defeating Juggernaut, Spider-Man encounters Excalibur, the British team
of X-Men, that work with Captain Britain. Their roster is comprised of
Nightcrawler, Phoenix II, Meggan, Kylun, and Cerise. They
attack him as well. At this point Captain Britain appears – in the same spot
where Spider-Man left the Juggernaut. The perspective shift and we are privy to
the inner thoughts of Cap. He too is confused by the sudden appearance of his
teammates who are now trying to capture Juggernaut, who is climbing the Eiffel
Tower. It quickly becomes obvious to both heroes that someone or something is
causing them to see each other as the Juggernaut. However they cannot convince
the rest of Excalibur of that fact.

At this point Nightmare and D'Spayre appear, claiming to be
responsible for this mass confusion. Phoenix, who has recently encountered them
(Excalibur V1 #29 & #35) attacks D'Spayre direct and is batted aside. Britain
and Spider-Man split up: Spider-Man to save the unconscious Phoenix and Britain
to attack D'Spayre He too is cast aside. For his part, Nightmare has molded
the steel in the Eiffel Tower into a makeshift prison for the other members of
Excalibur.

Spider-Man tries in vain to save Phoenix until he makes a startling
discovery. Captain Britain regains his bearings and flies in to attack
Nightmare, but D'Spayre causes the remnants of the tower to collapse on the
team. Overcome with grief, Cap directs his attention to D'Spayre.

At this point Spider-Man appears in mid-air, wielding the power of the
phoenix and destroys Nightmare and D'Spayre with a power blast. In reality they
are large, highly advanced robots. Once the energy has been dissipated, he
begins to fall toward the ground. Cap catches him and explains that he realized
Phoenix was an android and gambled that they were as well.

While they're swapping information about how they arrives, a large cast of
Spider-Man's enemies appear. The roll call includes: Silvermane, Tarantula II,
Dr. Octopus, Vermin, Vulture, Scorpion, Lizard, and the Green Goblin. Working
together they eventually defeat the androids. They soon realize that this is
part of an advanced virtual reality simulation based on the instantaneous and
improbable appearances.

They eventually trace this back to Arcade, who is serving time in
Darkmoor prison. He bartered with an opportunistic Shi'ar soldier during
"Operation: Galactic Storm" for some advanced technology that he incorporated
into a new version of his Murderworld. He needed to test it out and apparently
selected Spider-Man and Captain Britain and random.

They recruit the real Meggan (who's a shapeshifter) to take the place of his
Shi'ar contact and trick him into confessing that he bribed the warden to allow
him to run his schemes from inside the prison.

In General...

This is one of those comics where you're actually thankful when you finish
reading it. Even though it was ultimately revealed that this was all Shi'ar
technology, this was an implausible story that failed to generate any real interest.

In this particular case, the continuity actually slows down the story.
Unfamiliar as I am with Excalibur (very) some of the reference points made the
story difficult to follow. The Phoenix v. Nightmare/D'Spayre storyline is
hinted at, but without any kind of explanation, readers are left to wonder what
exactly happened between those characters. It might have been
interesting to go into that more, but without a brief recap, that will probably
not happen.

Overall Rating...

0.5 webs. This was a completely random story that should have never been made.
It was boring from beginning to end.

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